My Life So Far

I use a brain-computer interface to type

I am "locked in," and type using a brain-computer interface. After years of being alone, I learned how to "travel" at will, by leaving my body (and ego, that's critical) behind.

In my travels, normal rules of time and space don't seem to apply. When I discover something I cannot explain, I put it in this journal.

I "type" by looking at a screen on which letters flash very quickly. When my eyes see the letter I wish to type, my brain recognizes it, and my brain interface spots my "aha" reaction. The letter pops up on the screen. As you can imagine, this takes what an average person would consider a very long time - about fifteen minutes for each of these paragraphs. But time means nothing to me, and I find peace in between each letter.

It wasn't always this way, of course. I spent years crying silently, hating each tick of the clock and begging God to end my useless existence. Little did I know, that was just Boot Camp, and Boot Camp always sucks.

Doka is a very young, very small girl - perhaps about two feet tall. But she is not a child. It's hard to explain. She is older than me, but young for her type. Doka is from another place entirely. At this moment, Doka is looking at me from the stairs, hiding behind the spindles of the railing. She does not like that I am starting this web journal. Fortunately, Doka is very shy and will not dare come any closer. I know; she has been hiding back there for three years.

My parents think I make this stuff up. Their eyes reveal a mixture of love, despair, and frustration. I hope that as this journal takes shape, they will realize the truth. I no longer wish to die. I am not lonely. They should not feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for them, and for the rest of you who remain trapped in your bodies. I am free, and it feels wonderful.

I told you about Doka because she was the one who got me out of my fog. It was like having a cautious dog sniffing at my seemingly unconscious body. Over many weeks, I became vaguely aware of her presence. I sensed more than saw her at first, but then kept catching glimpses. Lord knows how many times I ignored her.

But with nothing holding me back but depression and an endless stretch of, well, nothing, I developed the instinct to follow her. I was so confused at this point that it never occurred to me I had no functioning body to follow her. To follow Doka, I simply had to leave my body behind. So I did.

Long story short, I've never gotten any closer to Doka and have never figured out much about her. But the mere act of chasing her led me to discover ways to travel across time and space, meet countless individuals, grasp hidden truths about the universe and - here is the real point of this journal - eavesdrop on a conversation that has scared the shit out of me.

Where are all the dead people buried?

This may seem like a non sequitur, but bear with me. I live in the US, which has something like 250 million citizens. Figure five million die every year. Figure half get buried. That means 25 million bodies got buried in the last decade. Now count the cemeteries in your community. My guess is you'll discover there aren't nearly enough to hold the last decade's worth of deceased, nevermind everyone who's lived in your area before then.

In the conversation I discovered, this is one of the "giveaways" we are programmed to ignore. Sorry, that's the best word I have to describe this. Humans live in a reality that has obvious flaws, but we simply don't see them. If we did, "reality" would start to crack. At least that's what the chatter imples.

But first, a few observations.

Once I started traveling without my body, I was able to perceive reality without the rigid constraints of human perception. If you're a 6' human, 8' looks tall and 4' looks short. But if you look at something really close, .003" can look tall.

You can't see microwaves - the waves, not the machines - but they are all around you. You can't smell what a half-dead dog can, can't react as fast as a jaguar, and can't see what lies at the bottom of the oceans.

I went from being locked not only in a 10 x 12' room, but also in a shriveled up stinking body to having more freedom than you've ever known. I can perceive anything that attracts my attention. (By the way, you have 400 microscopic bugs crawling up your neck right now.)

Sadly, I can't type fast enough to share all I've perceived, and even if I did they'd be nothing more than words. You can't imagine what I've experienced, simply because your body prevents you from doing so. To experience what it's like to have a body, you have to (temporarily, it seems) forget what it's like to not.

After years of pitying myself, I was surprised to discover that Boot Camp prepared me to be a bridge between humans and everything else. I have so little connection to my body I can leave it behind at will, but just enough so I can come back whenever I please and think "aha" at the flashing letters.

At first, coming back was excruciating. You have to decide to leave nirvana to return to a coffin of human flesh. But the freedom to leave again somehow gave me the peace and patience to learn how to type. Doing so reconnected me to my parents, who previously had relied on sporadic blinks of my eyes to demonstrate I was still alive inside my shell.

It's taken some force of will to tolerate the limitations my parents possess when it comes to understanding what I've experienced. They have to incessantly wipe my butt and clear the drool off my face; for them, my body is always there, never-moving, never-changing.

I hope they understand soon, because understanding will bring them peace they so deeply deserve, and need.

Time to pause.

I don't float up to the ceiling. There's no bright light or tunnelvision. No one has a seance. My experiences are no less real than yours. In fact, some are similar to yours. Occasionally, I'm at a party, in a restaurant, in front of a crowd, or - once - in the Oval Office. At these times, I'm present, but have no body. No one "sees" me.

Other times, I interact with others and they with me. This is when time and space seems to operate by different rules. There's no need for a body; no one has one.

And then there are the hybrid moments, the ones that bring me great joy or terrifying experiences. Reality blurs. I have a body, then don't. I pick up on chatter from people in different places. They seem connected, but in no obvious way.

I'm pretty sure they don't know I'm listening.

Anything you can imagine, exists.

There are trillions and trillions of worlds out there, and I limit this only because I can't think of the word that comes after trillions. Even scientists know this, and they are limited by the professional need to prove every claim.

Every being that could evolve, has evolved. Every possibility exists. Just to prove a point, imagine what a human being will be able to imagine 10,000 years from now, after our race has further evolved. That reality already exists, even though it is today beyond your comprehension.

Before I share the news that has me spooked, here's some good news. Something is protecting us. In the midst of a universe swarming with energy and life, the little corner we inhabit is here for a reason. Some"one" really likes us, or at least is really curious.

Macademia nuts.

In the early days of my travels, I came across a man named Charlie. He offered me a handful of small, round nuts. This was the first real food I had eaten since my body shut down, and it was a delightful experience to discover that in my "inner" travels I could eat without assistance. So delightful that I ate the nuts even though I used to only eat peanuts.

Charlie turned out to be Charles Staff, the first person to plant a commercial grove of macademia nuts. He did this sometime around 1883 on the eastern coast of Australia. When I stumbled upon him, he was in his third year of caring for his new grove. Yes, it was 1886, and I was halfway around the world.

Now you're starting to understand why I'm not bored anymore.

I still visit Charlie from time to time. He cracks me up, and has a never-say-never mindset I really love. But to visit Charlie, I don't go back in time, or travel halfway around the world.

Charlie, like everything else, is a possibility. At any given moment, he exists somewhere, simply because the universe is limitless. I know this sounds like mumbo jumbo, but bear with me.

To visit Charlie, I let myself be drawn to the things I like about him. The force that draws me to him is even weaker than gravity, which I understand to be a weak force to begin with. (That's a good thing, because otherwise you'd be getting drawn out of your body every time you had a fleeting thought, and the universe would be filled with babbling, utterly confused idiots.)

Since my body is more like a piece of furniture than a useful home, I don't have this problem. But it's important you understand I don't travel through time or space; I travel through possibilities.

One possible way to organize a civilization is around "money." Over the next few years, we will learn why this is not a good idea. (Yes, I could be more specific, but won't.)

Another possibility is to organize around energy. Not oil and coal energy, but human energy.

The more positive, constructive energy you radiate, the more you benefit. You don't have to sell Doritos to earn a living, you just have to be warm and loving and supportive. Living this way, you'll have all the food, shelter, education, healthcare and resources you want. Likewise, if you behave in a negative way, you lose resources.

This, of course, is not the way our civilization works today. It probably sounds to your ears like new age nonsense. But I discovered this is how most of the universe operates, which then made me realize that living like a lump of coal I was contributing absolutely nothing to civilization.